Doc locked for editing (Word 2003)

Hi Folks,
Some of my people are having a problem with a word document that has me stumped. Maybe some of you have seen this before and can shed some light on it.
The document consists of a list of hyperlinks that is saved on a shared drive.
When one person edits the document (call her P) and saves and closes it and then another person tries to open it (call her L), L can not open it as it is

Re: Doc locked for editing (Word 2003)

Check the folder containing the Word document. When someone opens a document, Word creates a file with the same name as the document, but with the first two characters of the name changed to ~$, so for example Letter.doc becomes ~$tter.doc. This file is used to keep track of who has opened the document. Under normal circumstances, this file is deleted automatically when the user closes the document, but if a problem occurs, the file may be left behind even though the user no longer has the document open. Word, however, will be misled by this file.
If you see a file whose name equals that of the problem document except that it starts with ~$, try to delete this file, then try to open the document.
If it keeps on happening, check whether P has sufficient permissions in the folder containing the document.

Re: Doc locked for editing (Word 2003)

I have seen this sometimes, but never been quite sure why it happens.

You can usually free the document from Computer Management (right click My Computer and select Manage) then go to Shared Folders > Sessions, right click on the session from user P and chose disconnect.

Re: Doc locked for editing (Word 2003)

Thanks again Hans. I will send the suggestion to my people and see if the file is present and if deleting it helps. I can't imagine what causes this though. Is this one of Words "undocumented features"?

Re: Doc locked for editing (Word 2003)

One situation in which Word locks a document that the user is no longer editing is when the user used Save As. The old "in-use" lock is not removed immediately. If the Save As was to a different location, it is possible that Word will lose track of the lock file.

Also, if Word shuts down without performing its usual clean-up, the files might remain. Users should be instructed to always use File>Exit to ensure Word shuts down properly, and especially not to disconnect from remote drives with Word still open if Word has touched any files on that drive during the session.